Shravana is the twenty-second of the 27 nakshatras, occupying the middle of sidereal Capricorn from 10 degrees to 23 degrees 20 minutes. Its ruling planet is the Moon, its presiding deity is Vishnu, the preserver, and its symbol is the ear. The name comes from the Sanskrit root for hearing, and the star is anchored to Altair, the bright star of the eagle, flanked by two visible companions. A person born with the Moon in this span has Shravana as their janma nakshatra, or birth star, and is read in the classical tradition as attentive, wise, and connected, someone who learns deeply by listening. Their Vimshottari dasha, the planetary timeline of life, opens in a Moon period of 10 years.
This page goes deep on Shravana alone. For the system itself, why there are 27 stars and how padas and lords work, the guide to all 27 nakshatras covers the ground.
Shravana at a glance
The fixed facts first. Each row is unpacked in the sections that follow.
| Attribute | Shravana |
|---|---|
| Position | 10°00′ to 23°20′ Capricorn (Makara) |
| Order | 22nd of 27 |
| Ruling planet (lord) | Moon |
| Deity | Vishnu, the preserver |
| Symbol | The ear; also three footprints |
| Marker star | Altair (Alpha Aquilae), with its two companions |
| Gana (temperament) | Deva (godly) |
| Nature | Chara (movable) |
| Starting dasha | Moon mahadasha, 10 years |
Where Shravana sits in the sky
Shravana holds the middle of Capricorn, contained entirely within the one sign. Its marker is Altair, one of the brightest stars in the sky, set between two fainter companions in a near-straight line, a grouping old observers matched to Vishnu's three strides.
The placement makes every Shravana Moon a Capricorn Moon, resting in Saturn's earth sign while the star itself belongs to the Moon. The combination is its own description: lunar receptivity working inside Saturn's structures. The classics read it as a mind that listens patiently, files what it hears, and builds something durable from it.
A small boundary note: some traditions carve the special-purpose 28th star, Abhijit, from a sliver at Shravana's start together with the end of Uttara Ashadha. That convention belongs to muhurta, the choosing of times; for birth charts the standard 27 apply, and this span reads as Shravana.
Vishnu, the ear, and the three strides
Shravana's presiding deity is Vishnu, the preserver, who in the old story crossed the entire cosmos in three strides, claiming it back from the demon king Bali. Its primary symbol is the ear, and an alternate tradition draws the star's three-in-a-row pattern as Vishnu's three footprints.
Together they give the star its theme: the cosmos taken in, kept, and ordered. Hearing in the Vedic world is not a passive sense; the oldest scriptures are called shruti, "that which is heard", passed ear to ear for centuries before they were written. A star named hearing, ruled by the Moon, presided over by the preserver, is the tradition's emblem of learning itself: reception, retention, transmission.
The personality of a Shravana Moon
Classical descriptions, set out in the Brihat Jataka, sketch the Shravana native as learned, courteous, and quietly perceptive: the person who speaks last in a meeting and says the thing that settles it. With the Moon as the mind in Jyotish, and the Moon also ruling this star, the inner life here is unusually receptive; conversation, study, and counsel are food.
The natural homes for the temperament are teaching, counselling, languages, media, and any craft of the trained ear, music among them. The deva gana classification and Vishnu's stewardship both point toward service: knowledge gathered here wants to be useful, and the chara, or movable, nature keeps the native travelling toward whatever is worth hearing next.
The heavier side the texts note is the listener's own: absorbing everything includes absorbing what is troubled, hearing everyone can postpone one's own voice, and gathered knowledge can stall short of action. The pairing the tradition offers sits in the star's sign: Saturn's Capricorn gives the structure that turns listening into output, and a well-placed Saturn, the sign's lord, is the standard mark of a Shravana chart that publishes, teaches, and decides rather than only collecting.
The four padas of Shravana
Each nakshatra divides into four padas of 3 degrees 20 minutes, and each pada corresponds to one navamsa sign, which is how the birth star plugs into the ninth divisional chart. Shravana's padas run from Aries to Cancer in the navamsa.
| Pada | Degrees of Capricorn | Navamsa sign | Flavour |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10°00′ to 13°20′ | Aries | The active learner; knowledge sought out and tested |
| 2 | 13°20′ to 16°40′ | Taurus | The keeper; what is heard is held, valued, and built upon |
| 3 | 16°40′ to 20°00′ | Gemini | The communicator; the listener turned speaker and writer |
| 4 | 20°00′ to 23°20′ | Cancer | The counsellor; hearing turned to care and emotional insight |
The progression is easy to remember as the life of a piece of knowledge: gathered in the first quarter, kept in the second, told in the third, and applied with feeling in the fourth. The pada the Moon occupies tells which stage of that cycle comes most naturally.
Shravana and your dasha timeline
The lord of the birth star opens the Vimshottari dasha, the 120-year cycle of planetary periods laid out in the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra. For Shravana that lord is the Moon, so a Shravana birth begins inside a Moon mahadasha of 10 years, the same opening the Moon's other stars, Rohini and Hasta, share.
The balance remaining at birth is proportional: a Moon just past 10 degrees of Capricorn leaves nearly the full 10 years, while a Moon near 23 degrees leaves only a sliver before the Mars period begins. The fixed sequence that follows is Mars (7 years), Rahu (18), Jupiter (16), Saturn (19), Mercury (17), Ketu (7), Venus (20), Sun (6), and around again. The find your nakshatra page calculates your star, pada, and opening balance from your birth details.
Shravana in compatibility matching
In guna milan, the koota matching used for marriage, several of the 36 points are scored from the two birth stars. Shravana enters as a deva gana star of movable, chara nature, classifications that pair smoothly across the gana koota and, in muhurta, favour travel and changes of residence.
The star's own signature, attention and adaptability, is read as one of the easier temperaments to match. As always, no single star decides: the count runs across eight kootas, weighing nadi, yoni, and the Moon-sign relationship together so that nothing is judged alone. The kundli matching tool runs the full 36-point table for two charts.
Shravana in the classics
The attributions on this page are the stable, named ones: the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra carries the nakshatra scheme and the Vimshottari sequence seeded from the birth star, while the Brihat Jataka describes the temperament of those born under each star, Shravana's marked by learning and fame for it.
Read sideways next: Uttara Ashadha before it shows Capricorn's principled face, and Dhanishta after it turns the sign toward rhythm and wealth. The whole wheel sits in one table at the 27-nakshatra map, and a free birth chart shows where your own Moon falls.